Controlling the glass transition through active fluctuating interactions
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Fluctuating pairwise interactions are understood to drive fluidlike states in dense biological systems. These states find a broad range of functionalities, such as directing growth during morphogenesis and forming aggregates with heightened mechanical response. However, a tractable model capturing the role of microscopic fluctuating interactions in these structural transitions is crucially lacking. Here, we study a p-spin model with fluctuating pairwise couplings (of strength D_{a} and persistence time t_{a}) as a schematic model for interaction-mediated fluidization. We find that while stronger fluctuations suppress the glass transition, more persistent fluctuations have the opposite effect. We identify the presence of an emergent fluctuation-dissipation relation at long times. We numerically extract the critical temperature T_{g}(D_{a},t_{a}) from a scaling relation near the transition, illustrating how microscopic fluctuations control the glass transition.
Source: Physical review. E
DOI: 10.1103/fm3j-829g
Authors: Emir Sezik, Henry Alston, Thibault Bertrand
Language: English
Subfield: Materials Chemistry
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Imperial College London
OpenAlex ID: W4416067368